Born in 476 CE in Kusumpur (Bihar), Aryabhatt's intellectual brilliance
remapped the boundaries of mathematics and astronomy. In 499 CE, at the
age of 23, he wrote a text on astronomy and an unparallel treatise on
mathematics called "Aryabhatiyam. " He formulated the process of calculating
the motion of planets and the time of eclipses. Aryabhatt was the first to
proclaim that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is
suspended in space - 1000 years before Copernicus published his heliocentric
theory. He is also acknowledged for calculating p (Pi) to four decimal places:
3.1416 and the sine table in trigonometry. Centuries later, in 825 CE, the Arab
mathematician, Mohammed Ibna Musa credited the value of Pi to the Indians,
"This value has been given by the Hindus." And above all, his most spectacular
contribution was the concept of zero without which modern computer
technology would have been non-existent. Aryabhatt was a colossus in the field
of mathematics.